Gary Dobson, of Little Tufts, Capel St Mary, pleaded guilty to one count of making an indecent photograph of a child when he appeared before Ipswich magistrates.

However, the court was told the website the 52-year-old subscribed to had duped him into believing it only contained adult pornography.

Hugh Rowland, representing Dobson, told the court: “My client is not a paedophile”

“It was at a vulnerable time in his life that Mr Dobson’s interest in adult pornography led him to a website. That website purveyed adult pornography. It also made it clear that it did not have illegal images, but what happened is that he became sucked in by an unscrupulous website operator who introduced images of a certain type.”

Mr Rowland added Dobson accepted he did look at those images.

“He did not know what they were, but there came a time when he did know what he was going to see.

“He subscribed to the website for a while. There came a time when he cancelled his subscription because he no longer wanted to have that access. That was before he was visited by police in 2013.

“This was an unsophisticated method of downloading images. There’s no saving. There’s no storing.

“You have a man who has downloaded it (and) viewed images that were illegal. He stopped doing that of his own volition.”

Previously prosecutor Wayne Ablett said that during 2011 intelligence was gathered by Gloucestershire police which led to an IP address. This in turn identified Dobson’s computer, which he had used to download child pornography.

Suffolk police were informed in 2013 and police executed a search warrant at his home last September.

When his computer was checked the following month there were 395 images at Level One on the Copine Scale, 138 at Level Two, 174 at Level Three, 183 at Level Four and a movie classified at Level Five – the most serious grading for child pornography.

Mr Ablett said: “He says at the time – in his words – he was in a very dark place in his life and was spending a lot of his time searching websites, viewing pornography.”

Magistrates said the case was so serious it would be committed to Ipswich Crown Court for sentencing.